


Choices

by Chokopoppo



Series: Reincarnation Cycle [2]
Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Repetition, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He needs flight, he needs home, he needs the stars and dark eyes and shifting essence and warm skin and vast great oneness and a gentle fragile voice calling his name but he cannot have both the Other Place and Ptolemy and the universe has made his choice for him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This fic is set in the same universe as Coffee, though not the same timeline. Events from both Coffee and The Stars Stand are mentioned.

He lies in the dark and listens to the quiet sound of Ptolemy’s breathing. Everything is the same as it always is, and none of it can last.

From the window, the sounds of the city ooze in, and Bartimaeus tries to understand the universe around him. Hard wood under twisting bones of his back. Traffic from far away. On the couch, a foot away, Ptolemy, sleeping, perfectly replicated as always by a universe trying to twist his heart until it splits in two. Bartimaeus doesn’t have to touch him to know his skin inch by inch - the rough calluses on his hands, the warmth of his blood, the softness of his hair. The curve of his back is just barely illuminated by the lights of a wakeful city through the dark of a wasted apartment, and in watching its rise and fall, he realizes it has become uneven.

When Ptolemy turns to look at him, he doesn’t even bother pretending to be asleep.

“Bartimaeus?” A long silence. The light barely catches in a glint on his eyes. “Are you alright?”

He considers lying - looks into Ptolemy’s face - can’t. “No,” he says, quiet and low, “I’m lonely."

“I’m here,” Ptolemy says.

He looks into the boy’s eyes, and they are exactly the same as they always are, even in the dark, even far away and bare and glazed with sleep. Ptolemy is still looking into him - trying to understand him - to discover him. Not for the sake of knowledge, because it never is at night. Ptolemy is trying to know how to help him, and it hurts. “I know,” Bartimaeus says, and covers his eyes with the palm of his hand.

The silence blooms like a flower in the light, and slowly, Bartimaeus feels himself begin to drift. From the couch, there’s a vague rustling - then a warm, living body pressing softly against his.

He lies in the dark and feels Ptolemy’s breathing, and wonders how many more times he’ll have to do this.

~~

Every life blends together. Sometimes it is Kitty, and she meets him angry and vicious and apologetic, loving him for trusting her and hating him for failing her and never sure which is which or why is why but feeling it all the same. Other times, more rarely, it is Nathaniel, passionate and empty and hungry, trying to fill the empty place left in him from the end days of the first life, losing a necessity in a hail of glass and fire. But most often, it is Ptolemy, perfect and kind and learned and warm and sad, and Bartimaeus needs him, needs him like he’s never needed anything before. Makes himself a slave to experience freedom the way Ptolemy gave it to him.

He needs flight, he needs home, he needs the stars and dark eyes and shifting essence and warm skin and vast great oneness and a gentle fragile voice calling his name but he cannot have both the Other Place and Ptolemy and the universe has made his choice for him.

Rekhyt. Rekhyt. Rekhyt.

~~

Ptolemy, it turns out, was easier to deal with at fourteen than he is at twenty-eight. At fourteen, Ptolemy was incredibly, prophetically single-minded, academic and focused on the logical task at hand. At twenty-eight, fully endowed with multiple PhDs and large financial grants, he is perhaps more adult - and less mature - than he ever was in his first life.

He drinks. A lot. Too much. Bartimaeus watches him stretch and then crumble, building a temple to his soul out of his body and letting excess eat away at him, night after night. He makes impulsive decisions, colors his body with ink and bruises. Peaceful Ptolemy gets in fights. The first time Bartimaeus sees tattoos on his body, he is shocked, briefly pained, because he has known that skin for two thousand years and it has never been like this and this is _imperfection_ , and he wants to weep. Pretends a fear of intimacy and leaves.

Sometimes, even though he knows it can’t be true, he thinks he sees recognition in Ptolemy’s eyes. Memories that belong to other versions of himself. Sometimes he thinks Ptolemy can understand - just in a glimmer - what Bartimaeus is, how he feels. Sometimes, he just feels it in the rhythm of Ptolemy’s heart, in the way he lies down and curls into him. In his sweat - in his breath.

~~

“I had a dream about you,” Ptolemy says quietly. Bartimaeus looks up from the essay he’s grading.

“Really?” He says, one eyebrow raised. “What happened in it?”

Ptolemy shifts uneasily, glances out the window at the breaking dawn, pale golden light streaming onto the plants at his windowsill. “Well, it was…really more of a nightmare, I guess.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

Bartimaeus looks at his friend, and remembers being here before. Had Ptolemy said it before, or had he? How many times had they had this exact conversation?

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he says, “but if you’re worried about my feelings, I promise I won’t be upset.”

The silence goes on for a long time. Bartimaeus lights a cigarette and returns to his work, but Ptolemy remains frozen at the window, staring disconsolately at the concrete and brick and mortar that make up the entire city, sprawling out endlessly before him. His eyes close slowly.

“I dreamed that you were mine,” he says, at long last, “but you weren’t, not really - and I didn’t want you to be. I didn’t want you to belong to anyone.”

Bartimaeus watches him at the window, tucks his pen behind his ear. Folds his hands together - tries to choose his words carefully. He has never been any good at careful words. “If I had to belong to anyone, I would want it to be you.”

Ptolemy, eyes still closed, turns his head away, brows furrowing and mouth clenched. At the window, the light of the rising sun streams through.

~~

Ptolemy at twenty-eight is interested in the internet and women and music and sex, none of which Bartimaeus has ever understood nor ever intends to. But he wants to love Ptolemy the right way, the best possible way, and has tried everything at least once. In return, Ptolemy does things he doesn’t want to do - drinking coffee, wearing makeup, writing English essays - under the guise of Building Character. It seems like a fair trade.

They meet somewhere in the middle, late at night and in the artificial darkness blackout curtains provide. Bartimaeus thinks of something that happened so long ago he can barely hold onto the memory - soft, cold sands in the night, Ptolemy over him, nervous and confused, a multitude of stars far above, aching like home in his essence, Ptolemy warm like home in his bones.

Sometimes the only thing he wants is to hear his name from Ptolemy’s mouth, and he will give whatever it costs to get it. Sometimes it takes work, sweat and saliva and blood - other times, it comes at no prompting, and swells warm in his chest. He wonders if this is how humans feel all the time, pumping blood through muscles and organs just for brief moments of a stuttering heart. The universe has made him a perfect-fitting suit of humanity, pulling the fluidity of essence out of him completely, in exchange for a boy with dark hair and darker eyes and a softly slanted smile.

~~

Ptolemy isn’t sleeping, even though it’s two in the morning and all the lights in the apartment are off when Bartimaeus gets home. He’s sitting at the table, staring at a graded essay like he can see it in the dark, eyes dry but red and streaking where they hadn’t been before.

“Ptolemy?” Bartimaeus says, quietly. Ptolemy doesn’t move to look up at him. “Are you alright?"

“No,” he says, voice weak and tired. “I’m lonely.”

Bartimaeus considers his options, pulls up a chair, sits next to Ptolemy. Touches one hand to his back - delicate and careful, fearful of breaking something he can neither name nor describe - looks at his profile. In adulthood, he has grown to look more powerful and more benign than ever before. This is something he could never have given Ptolemy on his own. “I’m here,” he says, and quietly suffers the knowledge that “here” is the most harmful thing he can be.

Ptolemy’s breath shudders, and for a moment, Bartimaeus is afraid he will begin to weep - instead, he releases the paper in his grip, uses one hand to pull Bartimaeus’ face against his, foreheads touching. “I know,” he whispers, and closes his eyes tightly.


End file.
